


Water on a Hot Day

by JacarandaBanyan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Animal Abuse, Dark, Dehydration, Forced Cooperation, Gen, Orochimaru's Highly Unethical Laboratory Workflow Processes, Unethical Experimentation, Unethical Medicine, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29890182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacarandaBanyan/pseuds/JacarandaBanyan
Summary: “Have the Hozuki child moved to the upper-level cells,” Orochimaru says to the first lab assistant to pass by. “One of the water-proof ones.”Orochimaru always tries to get consent and cooperation before starting his medical studies. Some test subjects just require a little more coercion than others to get it.
Relationships: Hoozuki Suigetsu & Orochimaru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Water on a Hot Day

**Author's Note:**

> For Trope Madness, prompt: Dark Fic

Orochimaru gazed down at the unconscious boy in the cell and considered how to get the stubborn thing to cooperate and climb onto the dissection table. 

It was rare these days that he had to force someone to comply with his experiments. The days of jabbing his experiments in the neck with a syringe and working to get everything done before the drugs wore off were a long, long ways behind him. He had moved beyond those old, primitive experiments into new frontiers of science. 

New frontiers that called for more delicate experimentation. 

If the test subject was unwilling to perform his clan’s signature techniques on command, then it would be difficult indeed to figure out how they worked.

The slight scrape of dry scales on skin caught his attention. He turned his eyes away from the Hozuki boy, towards the thin, dark shape peeking out from his kimono sleeves. 

“Hello, Suizen. Tell me, do you have any thoughts on this matter?”

Suizen, as he often did, stayed silent. However, the sight of him sent Orochimaru’s thoughts spinning on a new track. Memories of a different, similarly-reluctant ally-to-be rose up in his mind. The situations weren’t that different, really…

A smile stretched across his face. 

“Thank you for the suggestion, Suizen.”

* * *

_ When Orochimaru first laid eyes on the snake, a shot of joy went through him for the first time in weeks.  _

_ It was a small snake, nothing like the enormous creatures his mother used to summon in battle. It was curled up in a neat spiral near the garden spigot, and its cheeks pulsated amusingly as it gulped down the small trickle of water leaking from the metal end of the garden hose. It’s scales shone in the strong afternoon sun.  _

_ Orochimaru approached it with soft steps, taking care to not startle it. He tried to center his chakra the way his parents had told him he should when approaching a potential animal ally, but his efforts felt clumsy and poorly executed compared to their easy competence. Still, when he came within a meter the snake looked up at him without fleeing, so he’d probably managed it well enough.  _

_ “Hello,” he said to it, and inclined his head in a shallow bow. “My name is Orochimaru. My parents died recently, and so I have inherited this land. I welcome you to it in their place.” _

_ The snake gazed at him with unblinking eyes for several heartbeats. Then it flicked its tongue out and bobbed its head in a nod.  _

_ Carefully, as though his own body was made of fine china that might shatter if touched too roughly, he let some of this chakra gather in his palm. When he extended his hand out to the snake, it trembled lightly.  _

_ “If you’ll climb onto me, I will protect you from the creatures that eat small snakes like you,” he said, “and I will give you enough water to weather this heat.” _

One day, you’ll meet your own summons, _ his mother had said to him once.  _ When you’re a little bit older, you’ll get the chance to bond with just one to start. As you grow more powerful, you will earn the right to call more and more of them your partners in arms. 

_ Orochimaru had spent the hot, stifling weeks since his parents’ funeral avoiding any and all human contact that might force him to feel something other than a distant, muted grief. But now, for the first time in forever, another emotion shone through the fog of fear and sorrow like a ray of light dispersing a covering of clouds.  _

Desire.

* * *

“Have the Hozuki child moved to the upper-level cells,” Orochimaru says to the first lab assistant to pass by. “One of the water-proof ones.”

“Of course, Orochimaru-sama,” the budding medi-nin says with a bow. He can tell by the tone of her voice that she wishes she had enough security in his good graces to question him. But now that he’s thinking about her, he remembers how well she did last week when he had her dissect the corpse of one of her old genin teammates come to try and rescue her, and decides to indulge her obvious curiosity. After all, what kind of teacher would he be if he didn’t reward her when she exceeded his expectations?

“This child may be a deadly fighter, but he is not so flexible as he thinks he is. He declares for all to hear that he will master all seven of Kiri’s legendary blades, not realizing that he’s limiting himself to a single class of weapon. I’d be willing to bet he’s neglected other aspects of his training in order to focus on those swords. Put him in a water-tight cell with no water, and watch how quickly he breaks.”

She hides her satisfaction at having her unasked question answered behind a polite mask, but not so well that Orochimaru doesn’t see it. 

“Of course, Orochimaru-sama.”

What a delightful lack of self-awareness. How quickly she forgets that just a year ago it was her having something important to her withheld until she gave in and joined him. Then again, perhaps she hadn’t yet figured out that her original sensei was long dead, and that Orochimaru had been the one to deny her training at the hospital while wearing the old medi-nin’s face.

* * *

_ The snake was his closest friend for three hot, muggy days, and Orochimaru named him Suizen.  _

_ Unfortunately, Suizen wasn’t a proper summons. He had no innate chakra reserves that Orochimaru could find, beyond what could be expected of any normal living being. The snake couldn’t talk like some other Konoha shinobi’s summons could, nor did it seem to be trying to communicate with him. In the end, Orochimaru ended up seeking out an older jonin whose summons were also mostly mute for aid.  _

_ “It’s not that uncommon a problem, you know,” the scarred kunoichi said. “I’m surprised your parents didn’t show you how to do it before they passed. Your mom had snake summons too, didn’t she?” _

_ Orochimaru hid his instinctive flinch at the off-hand mention of his parents’ deaths. It would do him no favors to let this woman who was so comfortable with death see his own weakness.  _

_ “Some summons are absolute chatterboxes, of course. The toads are almost known for it, at this point. Some summons can only speak after reaching a certain age or skill level. And some are just never going to. You’ve just got to accept that. The trick isn’t to make them speak to you, but to figure out how to match your chakra up with theirs so that you can speak to them.”  _

_ He didn’t mention that Suizen wasn’t really a summons. He got the feeling that she wouldn’t have approved.  _

* * *

When Suigetsu finally awoke, he immediately tried to kill the kunoichi administering the antibiotics for the ragged cuts along his shins. She evaded his groggy lunge, then neatly exited his cell to inform Orochimaru. 

By the time Orochimaru arrived, Suigetsu had bloodied his hands and shoulder trying to force his way out of his prison. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and his eyes burned with hatred. 

“Good afternoon, Hozuki-kun. It’s good to see you up and about.”

“I’ll kill you!”

“As soon as you’re ready, I would like to enter you in one of my longer-running studies on physically-presenting kekkei genkai and clan-exclusive techniques and the chakra-based replication of their genetic components. It may be a little uncomfortable for you at times, but don’t worry. My anesthetics are beyond state-of-the-art.”

“Go ahead and let me out! I’ll cut your head off so fast, that fancy tongue will still be wagging when it hits the floor!”

“There will be some physical components, of course. Spars with qualified assistants in an observatory, staged fights, things like that. I imagine those will be a sight more fun for you than the less flashy lab work, but science can’t always be dramatic explosions and neatly-validated hypothesis-testing studies.”

“Where’s my sword?”

“If you have any questions about the process, please feel free to ask. Both Kabuto and myself are happy to discuss our work, especially with someone such as yourself with a unique experience to bring to the discussion. The other lab workers might not know enough to answer your questions, but they’ll try their best.”

Suigetsu screamed and threw himself against the clear walls of the cell. They didn’t budge. He turned to a thin mist, only to immediately return to his solid form. Orochimaru smirked. That particular technique worked much better when there more ambient air moisture than there currently was in the cool, dry cell. 

And then, finally, the Hozuki technique showed itself. 

Suigetsu melted, almost seemed to collapse in on himself, and suddenly there was a pool of water where a second ago there had been a body. The water splashed against the floor as it fell from Suigetsu’s head height, and ran in rivulets towards the seams of the cell in search of a hole or a section just porous enough to let liquid through. 

There were none.

* * *

_ Suizen was initially reluctant to cooperate with Orochimaru’s attempts to communicate. That was before Orochimaru realized that Suizen didn’t feel the need to communicate. There were plenty of small critters in the yard for him to hunt, and the garden hose provided a constant source of water warmed by the oppressive sun. His new friend was behaving like an Academy student who thought they could get by without taijutsu because they intended to specialize in something like sealing or medicine that didn’t require face-to-face fighting.  _

_ So Orochimaru fixed that.  _

_ Suizen did not struggle when Orochimaru carried him into the house and shut the door behind him. He had brought the snake inside before, and the reptile was used to the protection Orohcimaru offered within the bounds of his parent’s property. Not even when he carefully arranged long, sinuous coils on a warm rock in the lavish terrarium Orochimaru had put together when he first started bringing Suizen inside did the poor creature realize that something was wrong. _

_ Thus started the first day without water.  _

* * *

“So thirsty…”

Suigetsu lay slumped against the clear walls of his cell, eyes half-lidded and lips cracked. 

“That can be easily solved, Hozuki-kun. Just as soon as we get your consent to start taking samples.”

“You fuckers are going to kill me.”

“That would be a most unfortunate outcome. There’s far fewer studies that can be effectively conducted on a corpse than on a living specimen.”

The boy’s form lost some of its integrity as he half-liquified before reforming. It had been three days since he’d last had water, and the transition between liquid and solid had gotten visibly harder with each passing day. 

“Once you enter the study, you will of course be moved to a more… aqueous environment. Regular water intake is needed to power the technique, after all.”

The boy was so weak by now that Orochimaru could probably take the samples whether the kid wanted him to or not. But he had enough experience at this game to avoid that mistake. After all, with a little patience he would soon have the child’s cooperation, which would be infinitely more valuable in the long run than any single series of samples.

Inside his sleeve, Suizen adjusted his coils against Orochimaru’s bare skin. 

* * *

_ It only took two days for Suizen to start responding to Orochimaru’s attempts to communicate. Where before it had been like speaking to a rock, now the serpent tracked every movement and thrum of Orochimaru’s chakra and responded as best he could.  _

_ Once the creature got the hang of communicating, he asked for water. Orochimaru gladly gave it to him.  _

_ Later, he asked to leave. _

_ “Why would you want to leave, my friend?” Orochimaru said with a smile. “Unlike out in the wild, you’re safe here with me.” _

* * *

The Hozuki boy looked so lost as he climbed up on Kabuto’s dissection table. Had he been a little less dehydrated, he might even have cried and given Orochimaru the chance to wipe his tears away and reassure him that he’d made the right choice. 

The boy’s skin responded unhealthily to the pressure of the needle Kabuto used to administer the painkillers- more so than he would have expected. Perhaps his bloodline were more severely impacted by dehydration?

The eyes that stared up at Orochimaru as he prepared his petri dishes were so dull, he barely even noticed when the drugs reached the brain and the child lost consciousness. 

Looming at the edge of the operating table was an enormous tank full of water and water-soluble chemicals. The child had looked at it longingly when Kabuto first escorted him in, but had still passed the first test of his cooperation. Rather than running over and trying to break the glass and lick the water off the floor, like some specimens had in the past, he just kept his eyes on it until he had to look away to get on the operating table. 

That was good. The ones who failed to cooperate even after breaking down didn’t tend to last long. 

“Did you get his measurements, Kabuto?” He asked. 

“Yes, Orochimaru-sama. He should fit in the tank comfortably.”

“Perfect.”


End file.
